CS 71 
.P29 
1903 
Copy 1 



SOME ACCOUNT OF 



DETTMAR BASSE 



AND THE 



PASSAVANT FAMILY 



AND THEIR ARRIVAL IN AMERICA 



(By ZELIE JENNINGS, Their Grand-daughter.) 



i 



SOME ACCOUNT OF 

DETTMAR BASSE 

AND THE 

PASSAVANT FAMILY 

AND THEIR ARRIVAL IN AMERICA 

(By ZELIE JENNINGS, Their Grand-daughter.) 



3 '3 






/ / 



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^-^^it.-«>-TLA--.vC 



.^ 






Zelie Basse, afterwards married to Phillip 
Louis Passavant, was born 20th of November, 
1786, in the free cit}^ of Frankfort-on-the-Main, 
Germany. She was the eldest child of Dettmar 
Frederick William Basse, baptized, as it is re- 
corded, the 6th of April, 1762, in Iserlohn, 
province of Westphalia, Prussia, and of Sophia 
Wilhelmina Kellner, his wife. It is presumed 
Dettmar Basse came to Frankfort (Frankfort-am 
Mein) to visit his two half sisters, Mrs Reis and 
Mrs. Zickwolf, who were married and had their 
residence there, when he met the beautiful 
WiUielmina Kellner. He was handsome, with 
very attractive manners. An only son, he had 
inherited a larjj^e fortune, for those days, and on 
the third of January the marriage took place, his 
bride being sixteen years of age at the time. 
They were the parents of two sons and two 
daughters, who lived to old age, several children • 
having died in infancy. When his daughter 
Zelie was about six years old, Dettmar Basse re- 
ceived a diplomatic appointment which led him 
to the city of Paris, France. What was exactly 
the nature of his appointment, or what he was 
expected to do, I am not informed, but he re- 
mained in Paris ten years. Dettmar Basse had 



received tlie coniplimeiitarv title of Court Coun- 
cilor from the Klector of Hesse Cassel, for having 
lent him a large sum of money to free prisoners 
of war during the wars of Napoleon. He also 
gave a sum of money to the city of Frankf 
for the same purpose. Toward the end of tiis 
residence in Paris, Dettmar Basse had the mis- 
fortune to lose his wife, who died of a fever on the 
i.Sthof November, 1800. My grandmother, Zelie 
Basse, received every advantage of education in 
Paris, and was ever ready to improve all her ad 
vantages. She spoke and wrote English, French 
and German. She had a good mind and was well 
informed and accomplished. She had been bap- 
tized Frederica Wilhelmina, but in her childhood 
she had written a little story in which the princi- 
pal character was "Zelie." Her parents were 
so much ])leased with it that they began to call 
her "Zelie," and always continued it. In the 
early part of the nineteenth century there were 
many estates offered for sale in France, either by 
persons impoverished through the revolution, or 
confiscated by the government. Dettmar Basse, 
\\\u) was of a speculative disposition, and of 
s(Mncwhat visionary temperament, purchased a 
beautiful estate called "Vilgenie," near Paris, 
that had once belonged to the Princess of Conde', 
with a fine chateau surrounded by six hundred 
acres of Land, enclosed in a ston'^ wall. He soon 
found himself in debt, and to retrieve his for- 
tunes he established a ribbon factory, which was 
not successful. He was obliged to sell his estate to 
satisfy his creditors, and he then sought America 
as the scenes of new hopes and fortunes, where he 



—2— 



arrived in the year 1801. His children had been 
sent back to German)^ the younger ones to 
school, and his daughter Zelie went to her native 
Frankfort, to live in the house of her uncle, Wil- 
' " n Metzler, who was a man of wealth, and the 
i3urgomaster of the city. He had an only child, 
a daughter, of her own age, her cousin Carolina, 
to whom she became very much attached, 
and there she spent five happy years. In 
A.merica my great-grandfather, Dettmar Basse, 
.raveled quite extensively in the eastern United 
States. He was a man of fine appearance, pol- 
ished manners, and most agreeable conversation, 
speaking English fluently. He made many ac- 
quaintances in the cities before traveling west- 
ward to Pittsburgh to seek a location for a new 
home. That place was then the utmost limits 
of civilization in this part of the country, and 
much land was offered for sale cheaply. Dettmar 
Basse bought ten thousand acres from the Gov- 
ernment, some twenty-five or thirty miles from 
Pittsburg, in the valley of the Connoquenessing, 
Butler County, Pa. Dettmar Basse admired the 
country, and the wild forests, and many visions 
fioated through his imagination, of the time 
when he would live here, the master of a fine 
mansion, and an estate, surrounded by his chil- 
dren; but his letters to his daughter Zelie, in 
Frankfort, which alluded to these hopes, only 
filled her with dread; as she has herself told me 
she had no wish to forsake her German friends, 
and the comforts of life with them, for the wilds 
of America. Yet with courage she resolved that 
her duty and obedience must lead her to do 

—3 — 



so, if ever she was called upon. For some 
time, the first summer, Dettmar Basse lived in 
a tent, and though accustomed to the luxuries of 
Europe, enjoyed the novelty of his life there; 
and to some man who had asked him what he 
had been in Europe, he jestingly replied that he 
had been "Pastry cook to the King of Prussia." 
In a year or two he began to erect his house, a 
fine mansion for its day, with a good Irish car- 
penter named O'Neil as chief workman. But 
t\ie progress was necessarily slow; in those days 
work was not assisted by machinery, as at pres- 
ent. The house stood on an eminence overlook- 
ing the Connoquenessing and was named 
"Bassenheim," or Basse's home, in English. I 
should say here that though Dettmar Basse had 
but a remnant of his own fortune when he came 
to America, he always enjoyed a comfortable 
though not large income from his wife's estate. 
She had been a wise woman when she made her 
will, and knowing her husband's propensity for 
spending money with poor results, she so settled 
it that he could not use any of the principal dur- 
ing his lifetime, but only the interest of her 
money, and at his death it was to go to her chil- 
dren. The future proved the wisdom and fore- 
sight of her actions, though her husband was 
much disappointed at the time, as he was then 
in debt. 

In the year 1805 there came to America from 
Wirteniberg. Germany, a socialist society, organ- 
ized and founded by George Rapp In religious 
belief they were Second Adventists. They 

—4— 



found their way to the then far West in search 
of a home, and bought two tliousand acres from 
Dettmar Basse in the valley of the Con;.oque- 
nessing, Butler county, Pa., and built a town 
that is now called "Old Harmony." Their legal 
title was that of the Harmony Society. They 
brought cultivation of the land, manufactures, 
and trade to the neighborhood, which was a 
great improvement. In the year 1815, for vari- 
ous reasons, they removed to the Wabash, in 
Indiana, and built New Harmony, which was 
afterwards sold to Robert Owen and Fanny 
Wright, the Scotch Socialists, and the Society 
of George Rapp returned to Pennsylvania in 
1825 and built the town of Economy, in Beaver 
county. In 1806 Dettmar Basse thought it was 
time to return to Germany for his older children, 
his daughter Zelie, who was twenty, and his son 
Charles, who was eighteen years old. Accordingly, 
he set out on a long journey, so diiTerent from 
what it is at the present day. The journey over 
the mountains to Philadelphia was generally 
made on horseback by gentlemen, and six weeks 
was considered a short enough time for the voy- 
age across the ocean. In due time he arrived in 
Frankfort and found that his daughter Zelie was 
engaged to be married. He could not make any 
objection to her choice; a person so amiable, 
noble and in all respects wortny as my grand- 
father, Phillip Louis Passavant, could seldom be 
found. But my great-grandfat her resolved to 
take his daughter with him, and he was a man 
accustomed to be obeyed. Dettmar Basse de- 

—5— ' 



clared that to have his sanction to the marriage 
her husband must accompany his daughter to 
America. 

It was a great trial for them both to leave 
Germany, and my grandmother was in deep dis- 
itress at parting from her dear cousin Carolina 
(afterwards Mrs. Kessler), her uncle and aunt, 
and all her friends, and, as the future proved, 
forever. My grandparents were married one 
week before they left Frankfort — a marriage 
begun with so many tears on all sides, but the 
chief source of their happiness for forty-seven 
years. My greai-grandfarther, Dettmar Basse, 
his oldest son, Charles; his son-in-law, Phillip 
Louis Passavant; his daughter Zelie, and her 
maid, set sail fron Antwerp and arrived in 
Phildelphia in September, 1807. 

The Passavant family had long been estab- 
lished in Frankfort, Germany, but were of 
French descent. In the year 1594 as the family 
record declares, Claude de Passavant, with his 
wife and child, left his native province of Bur- 
gundy, in France. He had been educated in 
Germany and had imbibed the doctrines of the 
reformation, and returning, found his home no 
longer congenial, and vSacrificing his noble title 
and all prospective honours or estate, emigrated 
to Basel, in Switzerland. One hundred years 
later another member of the Swiss Passavant fam- 
ily (they had dropped the"de" from their name 
because Switzerland was a republic) emigrated 
to Frankfort-on-the-Main, in Germany, where 

—6— 



they became numerous, though part of the fam- 
ily remained in Switzerland, and their descend- 
ants are to be found there, and many of the name 
are also to be found in Europe and America, 
though the original French family has become 
extinct. The meaning of the name in French, 
"To pass before," was derived from the family 
coat of arms, which is a soldier carrying a banner 
or standard before the army. In 1846 my uncle, 
William A. Passavant, visited Switzerland and 
made the acquaintance of the Passavant family 
there, especially Miss Henrietta Passavant, with 
whom he sometimes corresponded. She had pre- 
pared for him a family tree, and a history of the 
family, written in French. It may be consulted 
at the home of the Passavants, in Zelienople. 
But to return to my great-grandfather, Dettmar 
Basse, and his family. When they had arrived 
in Philadelphia, then a more important city than 
New York, they found it very pleasant to linger 
there a while after their long sea voyage. Dettmar 
Basse introduced his daughter to his many 
friends and he seemed in no haste to seek his 
Western home. But as the season was advancing, 
they were obliged to set out. A large spring 
wagon had been prepared in which to travel, and 
there was also a compartment arranged behind, in 
which to carry two fine sheep that my great- 
grandfather had imported from the flocks of the 
Grand Duke of Baden. At that time there was 
great excitement in the country about raising 
fine wool and improving the coarser wool by the 

-7- 



introduction of Merino sheep. It was thought 
that fortunes could be made in this industry, 
something like in the gold and oil excitements of 
later days. These precious sheep arrived safely 
at their destination, and one of them was after- 
ward sold for one thousand dollars. The heavy 
baggage of the family, which consisted of no 
less than seventy boxes, was brought over the 
mountains by the great Conestoga wagons, drawn 
by four or six horses, with small bells attached 
to their heads, which were necessary to give 
warning of their approach over the rough and 
narrow roads. All the goods between Philadel- 
phia and Pittsburgh were conveyed in this way 
at that time. The Basse family brought many 
articles that they had in their house in Paris, such 
as fine china, pictures, ornaments, and household 
linen; even a large secretary was brought, beauti- 
fully inlaid with brass and different shades of 
wood. It still stands in the library at Zelienople, 
as good, apparently, as it was one hundred years 
ago. I have in my possession two tablecloths 
that are at the present time one hundred and 
thirty years old. They wf re part of the outfit 
of my grandfather Passavant's motlier, when she 
married, marked with her maiden name. As it 
was the custom of German ladies to get great 
quantities of linen when they married, she still 
had so much that she gave, her son part of it 
wlien he was married, and came to America, and 
as they were very large thev were seldom used 
and show no signs of wearing out. 

— &— 



When my g^reat-grandfather Basse and family 
arrived in Pittsburgh, which was then but a 
large village, it was already the middle of Novem- 
ber. In Allegheny there stood onl)'' one house 
on the shore of the river, occupied by the Robin- 
son family, who kept the ferry on -the Allegheny 
river, and from whom Robinson street is tiamed. 
When the travelers had crossed the river- there 
came up such a furious snow storm, the first of 
the season, that it was impossible to proceed. 
The Robinson family were very unwilling to keep 
them, but Mr. Basse urged that he had brought 
his daughter from Europe, and should she now 
be turned out perhaps to die from exposure? And 
they finally consented to exercise their hospitality 
for the night. The nearest place which they had 
hoped to reach that evening was the tavern of 
Mrs. Burns, sixteen miles farther, whose estab- 
lishment consisted of three or four cabins, one 
the reception room, a kitchen and bed rooms, 
Mrs. Burns was a warm-hearted Irish woman, a 
good cook, with her chicken and flannel cakes, 
always ready with which to entertain strangers. 
Dettmar Basse was her frequent patron and a 
favorite, and long she continued to entertain 
guests in the same place, though in a better house 
when he had ceased to be one of them. At last 
the family arrived at the end of their journey and 
took up their abode at Bassenheim (Basse's 
home). This was quite a fine-looking house, 
built in a picturesque style, and standing on an 
elevation overlooking the Connoquenessing, but 

—9— 



the house was not even finished yet, and had very 
Httle to make it comfortable, and though it ha 1 
some adornments, which they had brought from 
Europe, it had not the necessary furniture which 
could not easily be procured at the time. It was 
also very difficult to find provisions for the table, 
except some of the most common and coarsest 
food, and scarcely that. The first winter was 
very gloomy, and my grandmother spent much 
time in writing letters to her friends in Germany, 
when she could not always restrain her tears. 
Still she was a woman of courage and determina- 
tion, and she was resolved to make the best of 
circumstances. She had her husband with her, 
to whom she was much attached, and who had 
left his country for her sake, and she endeavored 
to make her home as happy as possible for him 
and for herself. In about a year my grand- 
parents removed to a house of their own in the 
village of Zelienople, about half a mile from 
Bassenheim. A village had begun to grow up 
on the estate of my great-grandfather Basse, 
which he called Zelienople, 'Zelie" for his daugh- 
ter, with the Greek word "polis," meaning 
city. The name Zelie is pronounced in French 
as if the e was a, and so my grandmother's name 
was always pronounced. 

In the early spring, Dettmar Basse found it 
necessary to go to Butler, the newly laid out 
county town, on some business. When there, 
lie was introduced at the house of a friend to a 
very beautiful young widow, who was their vis- 
itor, named Mrs. Israel. She was somewhat 



— lO — 



indispose!, and he \v \s asked to prescribe for her. 
He had brou^^ht some simple medicines from 
Europe, which lie sometimes gave to his neic^h- 
bors, and so was often cadled "Doctor." Dettmar 
Basse invited the lady to visit his daughter at 
Bassenheim, winch she did, but, as my grand- 
mother said, she soon saw that it was chiefly on 
his own account that he desired the visit. The 
consequence was that in August, 1808, my 
grandmother was invited to ride on horseback, 
over fifty miles, to her father's wedding, with the 
beautiful widow^ in Washington, Pennsylvania. 
The lady's maiden tiame had been Reddick. On 
this occasion the late Mrs. Eliza Shields, the 
mother of the Shields family of Sewickley, gave 
a reception to the bride. She afterwards re- 
moved to the lands inherited from her father, 
Daniel Leet, from whom Leetsdale is named, in 
the valley of Sewickley, on the Ohio. My 
grandmother returned from the wedding, feeling, 
as she told me, that her own great sacrifice, in 
coming to this countiy, because she thought her 
father was so lonely and desolate, was in a meas- 
ure useless. But the second Mrs. Basse lived 
only a little longer than a year, and died of con- 
sumption. She left a little boy, by her first mar 
riage. whom my great-grandfather, Basse car- 
ried on horseback before him, all the way to 
Philadelphia, to leave him in charge of some 
relatives there. 

Dettmar Basse was very anxious that his son 
Charles should settle in this country permanently, 



— II- 



and for this purpose be thought it best that 
he should marry an American. Charles was a 
very bright and attractive young man, and his 
father proposed that he should endeavor to win 
the heiress, Elizabeth O'Hara (afterwards Mrs. 
Harmar Denny). Her fatfeer was his friend and 
owned much of the land in Pittsburgh and vi- 
cinity, and was the father of the future Mrs. 
Schenley, But Charles had no idea of marrying 
any one at that time. In a year or two he was 
sent to Germany on business for his father, 
where he was charmed with a beautiful and 
lovely young lady of noble birth, whom he suc- 
ceeded in marrying, and refused to return to 
America, much to the displeasure of his father. 
Charles Basse never did see America again, 
though he lived to be over eighty years of age. 
He was the father of four sons nnd one daughter. 
Only one son is now living and one grandchild. 
This son is William Basse, a Lutheran clergy- 
man in Frankfort'On-the-Main, Germany, who 
has one son. 

But to go back to the fortunes of my great- 
grandfather, Dettmar Basse. He discovered 
iron ore upon his land, and he thought that noth- 
ing would make his estate more valuable and 
bring settlers than to establish an iron furnace. 
He did not understand anything whatever about 
the manufacture of iron, himself. He went to 
the East and brought managers to conduct the 
establishment of the furnace and the whole busi- 
ness of making iron; but when it was made it 



— 12- 



had to be haukd over the rough road twenty- 
five miles, to Pittsburgh, as a market, and there 
was no water power that could carry it nearer. 
All this work did not pay expenses, and in a few 
years he found himself in debt, and even cheated 
by one of his agents. In the meantime he had 
married for the third time, a lady from New Jer- 
sey, Miss Anna Rogers, with whose brother he 
had business relations. She was one year 
younger than his oldest daughter, Mrs. Zelie 
Passavant; but Dettmar Basse was comparatively- 
young yet, and was very handsome. It was 
somewhere about this period, but what year I 
am unable to say. that his two younger children 
arrived from Germany, his daughter Sophia, and 
his y(^ungest son, Sully. But they had not 
long to remain, for his affairs had reached such a 
state that to free himself from debt he was 
obliged to sell Bassenheim and all the remainder 
of his property, much to his grief and disap- 
pointment. He had too visionary and sanguine 
a temperament, without proper judgment, which 
had again brought him into trouble. In the year 
1818 he left Bassenheim forever and resolved to re- 
tire to Germany for the rest of his life. And now 
the wisdom of his wife's arrangement of her will 
was proved. He had always an assured income 
from this source; if he had had any of the prin- 
cipal it would have been swallowed up long ago, 
and he would have been dependent on his chil- 
dren. He resolved to take a new route to the 
seashore and see as much of the country as pos- 

—13— 



sible before he left it. He had a boat fitted up 
as a habitation for himself, his wife, daughter 
and son, and two men to direct it, with which he 
expected to float down the Ohio river to New 
Orleans and sail for Europe from there. This 
was accomplished after some months. The delay 
was caused chiefly by his stopping for some time 
with his old friend, George Rapp, and the Har- 
mony Society, then seitled at New Harmony, on 
the Wabash, in Indiana. They received him 
with much pleasure' and hospitality, and insisted 
upon an extended visit. Upon leaving them he 
presented Mr, Rapp, in recognition of his kind- 
ness, with several pictures and pieces of chuia, 
notably the carved ivories representing "Ruben's 
taking down of Christ from the cross" and an- 
other religious subject. They are very beautiful, 
and hang in the parlor at Economy on each side 
of the mirror between the windows. My grand- 
aunt Sophia (afterwards Mrs. Ehrmann) lias 
often spoken to me of this journey down the Mis- 
sissippi, and of sering Indians in many places. 
Sometimes the inhabitants came down to the 
shore, thinking the boat with its long stove-pipe 
chimneys might be those of a steamboat. Steam 
was an experiment yet, and had not reached the 
western waters. 

In German^' my great-grandfather Basse did 
not reside in Frankfort again, his old home, but 
went to live in Mannheim, not far from beautiful 
Heidelberg. There he died on the 19th of June, 
1836. After his death his widow retutued to her 

—14— 



native country. She outlived him many years 
and resided in Chicago, where she married again, 
late in life. I have a ring which she gave me, 
with my great-grandfather's hair in it, placed in a 
singular style, to look like an eye, and sur- 
rounded with pearls. Sully Basse settled in 
Frankfort, where he married and had a family. 
He died at eighty years of age, and has two 
daughters living, who have families, and also 
some grandchildren bearing his name. After 
some years, Sophia Basse returned to this coun- 
try and was married at Zelienople to Clement 
Ehrmann, a gentleman whose acquaintance she 
had made in Germany She resided in Beaver 
county, Penna., and died 1870, being survived 
by one son, Dettmar Louis Ehrmann, When 
Dettmar Basse, her father, had left with her sister 
and brother, my grandmother Passavant was left 
lonely and without relatives, though she had her 
husband, and children, of whom she had three at 
this time. Always energetic and very indus- 
trious, she found plenty of work in training and 
educating her children and looking after the 
ways of her household. She was an affectionate 
and devoted mother, and took every occasion to 
imorove surrounding events for the moral advan- 
tage of her children, showing the good or evil 
influence cf different actions in common life. 
She was very fond of the garden and spent much 
time upon her plants and flowers. Bassenheim 
had been sold to Mr. Daniel Beltzhoover, of Pitts- 
burgh, the father of the Beltzhoover family of 

—15— 



that city. My grandmother formed an intimacy 
with Mrs. Beltzhoover, whom she found a very 
lovely woman, but after a few years Mrs. Arra- 
bella Beltzhoover passed away, the victim of con- 
sumption, and was buried on the estate. Mr. 
Beltzhoover married again, and in a few years 
Bassenheim was sold the second time, in 1831, to 
Mr. Saunders, a gentleman from the East, who 
established there a manual labor school. About 
the year 1842 the house was destroyed by fire. 
There was no longer a school there at the time. 
I have a picture of Bassenheim painted, in India 
ink, which I copied from a painting by Aunt 
Virginia Passavant, which she had copied from 
one taken from the house itself, by Mis.s Harriet 
Preble, sister of Mrs. Barlow. 

A piece of land belonging to the original tract 
of Dettmar Basse, and at the time belonging to 
my grandfather Passavant, had been sold to Mr. 
G. H. Muller, a German gentleman wno was at 
the time engaged in business in Havana, Cuba. 
He wished to settle upon it his father-in-law, Mr. 
Caspar Muller. and family, who was at the same 
time his uncle. This gentleman was from Ham- 
berg, Germany, and had been a merchant in 
Baltimore, but had met with some reverses dur- 
ing the war with England. They were persons 
of cultivation and refinement and my grandmother 
greatly enjoyed their association .for many 
years. A handsome stone house was built, called 
"Benvenue," on a hill overlooking the valley of 
the Connoquenessing and the village of Zelien- 

—16— 



ople. In later years Mr. Muller retired there 
himself. There were two young ladies in the 
family who were well accomplished in music, 
playing on the piano and harp. One of them, 
Miss Melusina, was soon married to Mr. John 
Henry Hopkins, who was born in Ireland, but 
came to this country when four years old. 
and afterwards became a distinguished clergy- 
man and almost the founder of Trinity church, 
Pittsburgh, and bishop of Vermont. But at this 
time he had begun his career in life as a clerk 
and manager of my great-grandfather Basse's 
iron furnace. The iron business was then a 
rising industry in the west, and Mr. Hopkins 
had p'-epared himself for it, though circumstances 
atter wards led him to change his vocation. His 
life has been written by his son. I have heard 
my grandmother say that she never had known 
a man with such a variety of talents, for music, 
painting, poetry, as well as a natural eloquence 
of speech. Sometime about the year 1823, my 
grandfather, Phillip Louis Passavant, visited 
Europe to see once more his aged parents. My 
grandmother could not accompany him, being 
the mother of five young children, and a journey 
to Europe being a great undertaking in those 
days. When my grandparents first came to this 
country they had always hoped that something 
might permit them to return to Europe again, as 
their permanent home, and this hope had helped 
them to bear with greater patience their depriva- 
tions and loneliness here. But as time passed 

—17— 



oil, all Germany and Europe was bein^ harassed 
by the wars of Napoleon Bonaparte. Commerce 
was ruined, and my grandfather Passavant's 
father, who was an importing merchant dealing 
with France, had lost much money. Yet my 
grandparents often said that the only letter they 
had ever known to be lost was one which invited 
them to Frankfort, and offered my grandfather a 
position there. They did not know of it until 
long afterwards, when it was too late to accept, 
and they concluded that Providence never 
designed them to return, and perhaps it was 
better for their children to remain here. My 
grandmother carefully educated her two daugh- 
ters at home, keeping them at their lessons at 
regular hours. They were well acquainted with 
English, French and German, speaking them 
readily. At fifteen, my mother, whose name was 
Emma Marie Wilhelmina (always called Emma 
in her family), after being for a short time at 
school in Pittsburgh, where she was under the 
care of her mother's intimate friend, Mrs. Neville 
B. Craig, was sent to the Misses TurnbuU's school 
in Baltimore, partly that she should know some- 
thing of the world, and see other girls. There 
she was a diligent pupil, and was admired for her 
amiability and sweet quaintness of manners, and 
a slight French accent in her speech, which was 
considered attractive by her friends, but which 
she lost in after years. At the age of twenty 
Emma Passavant was married to Samuel Carna- 
han Jennings, a Presbyterian minister. She 

— 18— 



was the mother of four daughters and two sons. 
All are now living but one son. M}^ grand- 
mother's second daughter was baptized Sophia 
Carolina Virginia, and called "Virginia" in the 
family. She was eight vears younger than her 
sister, was highly accomplished, very well in- 
formed, and had a fine mind. I have in my 
possession a letter written by her when she was 
a child of seven years of age, without any assist- 
ance from any one, written to her sister, who 
was ill and away from home, and is quite re- 
markable in its style and sentiments for a child 
of her age. Virginia Passavant attended a 
school in Pittsburgh, established by Dr. Lacy, 
an Episcopal clergyman, on the outskirts of the 
city, at a place called Lacyville at that time, but 
now the site of the Passavant Memorial Hos- 
Hospital. Virginia Passavant was known not 
only for her intellectual abilities, but for her true 
piety and general excellence of character. Stie 
was deeply lamented, for at the age of twenty- 
five she died of a fever at Zelienople in 1844. 
Philip Dettmar was the name of my grand- 
parents' oldest son. He spent a year in visiting 
his relatives in Germany, and was so much 
pleased with his visit that he declared he would 
make a forture in this country and go to Europe 
to reside. But his hopes were soon blasted. In 
about a year after his return he died in Pitts- 
l)urgh in September, 1839, after a few days' ill- 
ness with a fever, which affected his brain. He 
was associated with his brother, Charles Sidney, 

—19— 



in the wholesale grocery bashiess, but after his 
death his brother, disheartened and discouraged, 
gave up the business and retired to his father's 
house in Zelienople, where he was the stay 
and comfort of his parents during the rest of 
their lives,'his mother outliving his father nearly 
twenty years. Sidney Passavant was married 
after some years to Jane Randolph, whose grand- 
father, Mr. Henry Buhl, had been a near neigh- 
bor of the Passavant family, and though born in 
Zelienople, she had been brought up by an aunt 
in Detroit. They were the parents of a son and 
daughter. Charles Sidney has his father's 
name; he is married and has two sons. Emma 
Virginia, the daughter, lives with her widowed 
mother, in the old home at Zelienople. It is 
often the custom to give several names to chil- 
dren in Germany, and the name next to the 
surname is the name by which they are addressed 
generally. But my grandmother seems to have 
selected the one she fancied best, and she gave 
the name of William Alfred to her youngest son, 
who was always called William. This son be- 
came a Lutheran clergyman. He was born in 
182 1 and died of pneumonia in June, 1894; about 
six weeks before his older brother, Charles Sid- 
ney, also passed away. He was very acceptable 
as a preacher, and was much esteemed and ad- 
mired. He gave up his parish in Pittsburgh in 
order to devote his time to the founding of hos- 
pitals and orphan asylums, in which he was 
much interested, though he alwa3's still found 



-20 — 



some place that needed his pulpit ministrations. 
He introduced the order of Lutheran Dea- 
conesses into this country, founded by Dr. Flied- 
ner at Kaiserswerth on the Rhine, Germany. He 
was remarkably successful in collecting i>ioney 
for his various charitable institutions, rnd hi in- 
teresting many persons in their establishment. 
Hospitals were founded in Pittsburgh, Mil- 
waukee and Chicago; also orphan asylums at 
Zelienople and near the city of New York. He 
seemed to inspire great confidence everywhere 
in his charitable work and he was on the whole 
very successful in finding suitable persons to 
manage the details of his various benevolent in- 
stitutions, though the order (>f Deaconesses did not 
increase very rapidly in this country. His death, 
which occurred in June, 1894, was deeply 
mourned by all who had known him, and by 
those who had felt the benefit of his labors. His 
son, his father's , namesake, also a Lutheran 
clergyman, succeeded to the superintendence of 
the institutions his father had established, and 
was very successful. He outlived his father but 
seven years, dying very suddenly in July, 1901, 
at a country home in the mountains near Union- 
town, Fayette county, where the family had 
been living for some years in the summer. Of 
niv uncle's family remaining there is his 
widow, whose rnaiden name was Eliza Walter, of 
Haltimore, and four sons and one daughter, Mrs. 
Z.-lie Emerson (a widow), of Jackson, Michigan. 
Tans all the children of my grandparents, Philip 



— 21 — 



Louis Passavant and Zelie Basse, his wife, have 
departed this life, and also some of their grand- 
children. 

My grandfather, Philip Louis Passavant, was 
noted for his honor and perfect uprightness of 
character in all his dealings with his fellowmen, 
and there was something so genial and amiable in 
his noble countenance and manners that he was 
universally beloved by all who knew him. He 
spoke English without any perceptible accent, 
having been sent as a youth to England to 
acquire the language. He was fond of books, 
of art, and all the refinements of cultivated life 
to which he had been accustomed in Europe. 
Yet his life was one of much self sacrifice, borne 
with cheerfulness and patience, and compensated 
for by the .society of those he loved best. Though 
he was never a wealthy man, especially as wealth 
is considered now, his hand was always open to 
the needy. Yet he was seldom or never imposed 
upon. My grandfather Passavant was born in 
the city of Frankfort, Germany, in ryyy, and 
died at his home in Zelienople after a few davs' 
illness in April, 1852. My grandmother, who 
was ten vears younger, outlived him nearly 
twenty years. She was well suited to be a 
pioneer, by her energy, perseverance and in- 
dustry. She spent no time mourning for past 
comforts or advantages, but spent the time 
making the best of the present. She spurned 
undue self-indulgence and indolence herself, and 
brought up her children with the same habits. 

— 22 — 



My grandmother's last 3'ears were years of much 
pain and partial blindness, borne with patience 
and submission to the will of God. She had al- 
ways been an expert knitter, and often read and 
knitted at the same time, with a book or paper 
spread out before her. Only occasionally looking 
at her work, her fingers could fly like machinery, 
and as long as she could see she always had her 
dozen pairs of stockings ready for the orphans 
every winter. In the last days of the year 
eighteen hundred and seventy-one she departed 
this life at the age of eighty-five years. 

In this sketch of my grandmother Passavant. 
and those nearly connected with her, I have 
called upon my own memory, and that of my 
mother and my grand aunt, Sophia Ehrmann, 
my grandmother's only sister, for facts which 
they have related to me, and in which I always 
took an interest and retained readily. My 
grandmother herself, when I was about fourteen 
years old, gave me a short account of her early 
life, and her coming to this country, which I 
have never forgotten, and which I have en- 
deavored to preserve for her descendants in these 
pages. I shall be sorry if I have failed to 
present allher virtues with the clearness and 
vividness which they deserve, but hoping that her 
example may be followed as my best wishes for 
my readers, I lay down my pen. 

Your affectionate sister, aunt or cousin, 

ZELIE JENNINGS. 
»9o3 _23_ 



FEB 17 1913 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



021 392 055 8 



